Cut In Two
by amberpire
Summary: Winter stopped and spring started in her absence and you're not growing anew like you should be. ;Carly/Sam;


**A/N:** The quotes that are italicized are meant to be flashbacks of a conversation that happened in the past. Just so that's clear. I hope you enjoy the story. Reviews are always appreciated.

* * *

"Carly."

He says your name like it's his favorite. Like out of all the billions of words and combinations of letters and names out there, the arrangement of yours is the most beautiful.

He says it like you're going somewhere and he's trying to bring you back.

He says it like he's running out of time.

You let him touch you, let his fingers roam over the plane of your stomach and pluck the button of your shorts, you let him kiss your breasts and hold your thighs in soft, warm hands. He's always so gentle with you, so soft, like you're made of glass. Everything is smooth - practiced, because you let him do this a lot, you let him have you like this. Some part of your warped mind has made it seem like he deserves it after years of panting at your feet.

He's waited long enough.

Besides, having sex with Freddie is the best way to get back at _her_.

It's your way of saying, _I don't need you_.

But you've never been good at lying.

[~]

"Do you think she'll ever come back?"

You wish you smoked, because it feels like this moment calls for self-destruction. You're on the roof of your apartment building, Seattle small and far away beneath you. Freddie is staying clear of the ledge, having never been one for heights, but you're right next to it.

You're not afraid of stupid shit like that anymore.

Freddie shrugs his shoulders, his jacket crinkling with the gesture and you turn a little to look at him, this boy that's so madly in love with you he's waited the better part of his life for you to give him a chance. He's a little taller now that you're almost done with high school, no longer the awkward, nerdy boy that you started iCarly with. He's nearly a man.

"Dunno," he says, finally, turning his own eyes to the sky. Daylight is dying and the sky is the color of a nosebleed.

You look back at the city stretched out before you and wonder if she's out there somewhere, or if she's too far away for you to see, or if she's alive at all.

Eighty-two days is a long time to disappear. The world becomes different; distant and fuzzy, like she's your glasses, and now you're impaired.

You tell Seattle that you hate her. Freddie thinks you're talking to him and 'hm's at you but you don't reply, just cross you arms and stare out over the sea of buildings and houses and roads and cars and people, people you know and don't know and you wonder why, out of all the people in this city, you had to meet _her _and not someone better.

Your heart hurts. Freddie touches your hand and you know he's trying to comfort you, but it's not working. Freddie's touch will never matter as much as hers did.

[~]

You're wearing her sweatshirt because Spencer's gone and you're alone, curled in your bed. It's the last thing she left at your house, the one thing she forgot to take before she left.

'Left' seems like the wrong term. More like disappeared. Ran away. Fled. Abandoned.

Your apartment doesn't smell like her anymore, but this sweatshirt does. It has mustard and ketchup stains on it, as well as what looks like faded imprints of permanent marker. It has a logo for a local pizza shop on it and when you puddle the fabric around your nose and inhale, it's like she's inside of you.

_Sam_.

It's not that you don't want to cry, it's just that you've cried so much already and you can hear her in your head, telling you to suck it up and stop being a baby. She was always like that, trying to toughen your skin and make you more durable. Not so fragile. Almost like she was preparing you for this, like she's had it planned since you were kids. That's a sick thing to think, because none of this should have happened and up until recently you never thought she would hurt you.

It all happened so fast and you don't like thinking about it, don't like seeing it in your head over and over; her blonde hair whipping around her as she threw herself out of your apartment, the fading sound of her footsteps, the ding of the elevator as it carried her away.

Your heart told you to run.

You didn't listen. You never listen, you just do what you think everyone would want you to do. They're this invisible entity that hovers over every decision you make, pats your back, says, "Good job, kiddo."

You live for the moments you feel good about yourself but for the past eighty-three days, you have nothing to live for.

Your eyes close. They're so heavy, so hard to keep open, and the world shuts itself off and on the other side of your eyelids it's just black, but the darkness is loud and threatening. There are flashes of blonde, orbs of blue, the ringing sound of laughter that feels so thick and tangible, you could reach out and touch it. You inhale again, sucking her in, bringing her into you, into your lungs and bloodstream and ultimately your heart.

_"What are you afraid of, Carly? What are you afraid of?"_

_"Everything!"_

Your eyelids snap back like taut elastic and you breathe hard, staring at the empty space beside you. Mocking you. Shoving it in your face. Letting you know that all of this is without a doubt your fault.

You're severed at the seams and covered in cracks.

You tear off the sweatshirt and let it fall in a heap to your floor and then you kick it in the closet and let the last little bit of Sam you had left disappear.

[~]

Spencer is watching you from the kitchen. The TV is on but you're not really paying much attention to it, just letting your eyes rest in that direction. You don't notice that it's the news. You don't notice that the volume is so low, you can't hear it. You just know that images are passing in front of your brain, words and colors. And they're all unimportant. Your mind is somewhere else. Numb. Humming.

You sense movement in the corner of your eye and watch as Spencer sinks in the couch beside you. You don't know what day of the month it is, or the time, but you do know it's day ninety - three months on the dot.

You never realized how empty your life was until Sam wasn't in it anymore.

Spencer's looking at you, studying you, like he's trying to find something in your skin. Emotion doesn't flicker across your face because you've forgotten how. But eventually you're sliding across the couch and curling in his lap if just to seek some kind of comfort, it just to feel someone holding you. And his arms wrap around you and his chin rests on your head and you stare blankly into the kitchen. If you close your eyes, you can see Sam perched on top of the table, her legs swinging, an apple in her hands, and then she's throwing it at Freddie's crotch.

It's a nice memory, and you turn into Spencer's neck while he rubs your back and you thought you were done crying, but you're not.

"You're going to be okay, kiddo. She'll come back."

You don't want him talking like that, you don't want anyone talking to you like that, because you hate it. You don't want people telling you she'll come back. They don't know. They don't know what Sam is going to do. No one does but Sam, and no one knows where Sam is.

You feel like Sam should be your sixth sense or something, but when you close your eyes and try and find her, you only see her angry face.

"What if she doesn't?"

The question hangs in the living room, cold and loud, echoing in your mind long after you speak it into Spencer's skin. Your brother just kind of stops for a moment, just ceases, because it seems like everyone else hasn't thought about it except you, like you're the only one who has entertained the thought in the past three months that maybe, Sam just won't come back. Maybe Sam wrote herself out of all of their lives forever.

Spencer doesn't answer because he doesn't have one and you prefer the silence. You don't want to fill it with words you don't mean. You've said enough of those, that much you can promise.

_"I don't love you like that."_

_"You're a terrible liar."_

[~]

Gibby toys with his food at the lunch table. He's lost a lot of weight recently and so have you, actually. Food lost its appeal when Sam left.

A lot of things lost their appeal when Sam left.

Like living, for example.

Gibby drops his spoon and there's pudding on his plate and this is the first time you've ever seen him refuse pudding. His hands thread through his hair and he stares at the table. Freddie is beside you, an arm around your waist.

"You okay, Gibs?" It's Freddie that talks. He seems to be the only one not struck dumb by Sam's absence. You know Freddie cares about her, but he's too solid to let things like this get to him. He's stronger than you, stronger than Gibby, and he's able to move and think and function without her. You can't. Gibby's barely making it.

Gibby shrugs his shoulders, glancing at the empty chair next to you. You don't want to look at it, you don't want to see the proof that Sam isn't here. She used to skip school all the time when she came at all, but this is different because she's not just not at school, she's not at home, she's probably not even in Seattle, and who knows if she's even in Washington at all. But you can feel the empty chair beside you where she used to sit, when she would drape her legs in your lap and nap on your shoulder while stealing pieces of your lunch. Yeah, you feel it. You feel everything.

"I miss her." The words leave Gibby's lips like flags of surrender.

"Me too," you say quickly without thinking about it, and Freddie tightens his arm around you, turns his lips to press them to your temple. It's a possessive gesture that's supposed to make you feel better, but you know Freddie's just doing it because he can, because you're too broken to try and push him away. If only Sam were here, she'd have busted Freddie's nose. And his face. And anything else she would reach before you stopped her.

She always hated when Freddie touched you like that and for a long time you didn't understand why. Now, you've got an idea.

You put a hand on his chest and push him back slightly. He takes the hint, unwinding his arms and folding them on the table. You like that about Freddie. He doesn't push it, and he knows when to stop.

Why can't you love him, and not someone who disappeared?

"As soon as she gets back, I'm going to hug her. And then I'm going to punch her." Gibby looks like he's about to cry and you reach out, touching his hand.

"You and me both."

He looks up at you, trying to smile, but you both just reflect that anger and fear and resentment back to each other. His fingers curl over yours. And for a few moments, you don't feel so alone with Sam's absence.

[~]

Freddie's not a bad kisser at all. He's actually pretty good at it. He's very cautious about about his usage of his tongue, always being careful to not use too much or too little, and his lips don't fit perfectly against yours but they're soft and warm and a good distraction.

He whispers your name to you as his fingers peel off your shirt and you try and lose yourself in him, kissing his mouth and tearing off his pants with uncharacteristic ferocity; you need this, you need this _now_, because Sam keeps invading your thoughts, makes your chest ache, and you're so tired of it, tired of her having this power over you when she's not even here. You touch Freddie's bare chest, his arms, his back, and your eyes are screwed shut. They're always shut.

It has nothing to do with how Freddie looks or his technique, it's just that he's Freddie and not Sam.

The thought jolts through you and you bite back a whimper, clutching at Freddie, urging him to hurry up, to get inside of you and take Sam away. And he does, because he's a hormonal boy and nobody in their right mind would turn down an opportunity like this. But it only feels good when you close your eyes and think of Sam and you hate yourself for that in ways you could never explain.

It's over quickly, and Freddie is laying beside you, naked. The two of you are staring at the ceiling.

"I never thought it would be like this," he says. The words feel dense, hovering above the two of you. He turns and looks at your profile but you keep staring at the ceiling, at the words circling the room.

"Me either." Your voice is numb and flat. Freddie reaches out and touches your hair, smoothing it behind your ear. You flinch away, rolling over so your back is to him because Sam used to touch you like that, all soft and un-Sam like.

"What are we, Carly?" You feel the bed shift behind you, listen as Freddie pulls his pants on and sits on the bed. You don't answer, just stare ahead of you because you don't know what you are, you don't know what Freddie is, all you know is that you wish you knew that at least Sam was out there somewhere, that she wasn't starving or drunk or dead. You think you'd be okay if you just knew she was alive.

"I thought that I would take you out on dates, that you and me would spend nights watching movies with Spencer, that we would double-date with Sam and whatever chum she decided was worthy of her time ..." Freddie's talking to fill the silence because he's tired of it and so are you. There's been so much quiet since Sam went away. "I thought you would fall in love with me, but you're not, are you?"

You sigh, hard and heavy, and your chest hurts when you sit up, pulling the sheets around your body. Your room is dark, but you can see Freddie's back. You crawl toward him, looping your arms around his neck and pressing your face into his skin. He smells good and he's warm, and you wish you could love him the way he loves you, you wish you could be normal and do the right thing and tell him that you do love him that way. Any smart girl would. Any girl other than you would realize what an absolutely perfect boyfriend Freddie would make and how happy you would be by his side.

You tilt your head until your mouth is by his ear and you tell him you're sorry. His hand reaches up and touches your arm, a sigh leaving him like he's finally given up. You hate yourself for taking all of those years away from him, the time he spent waiting for you to look his way. But it's never been Freddie that makes your heart stop.

"Sam will always have you in ways I won't."

"Sam's not here."

"I can't take her place." Freddie rubs your arm slowly. "You love her."

You let the words hang there for a while before sighing into Freddie's neck. You know you do, but you've never said it to anyone, not even Sam, but Freddie gets you like no one else does. He had sex with you to help take away the pain for a while, didn't he? He's not a selfish person.

"I'm scared," you whisper into his ear, and he turns and lays down on the bed with you and holds you to his chest. And Freddie loves you, Freddie loves you so powerfully it makes you choke on a sob and he rubs your back as you cry, cry because you can't love him like that, cry because the only person you did love like that is far away and it's because of you.

And he holds you, naked in the dark, as you whisper apologies into his skin.

[~]

You're in the grocery store when you see Sam's mom.

They look alike. Not in the way you'd think; physically, all they share is that blonde hair and blue eyes, but the way they carry themselves is identical. Mrs. Puckett has this strength about her, the same harshness to her eyes and that unreachable kindness she only shows for those she loves most. She's pushing her cart down the cereal aisle and you're holding your basket on your elbow, frozen as you watch the woman.

It's like she simply knows you're there. She just turns away from the colorful boxes around her and stares at you, her face carefully blank. You feel your shoulder meet the shelf beside you and you lean against it, afraid you'll fall.

You've only talked to her once since Sam disappeared, on the phone, because you didn't think you could handle seeing the pain in her eyes and you realize that you can't, and when she approaches you you're not ready. Your eyes fall to the dirty tile below you, studying the scuffs in the floor from a thousand pairs of different shoes. Mrs. Puckett's feet come into your view and you study them, the laces clumsily undone.

It's so like Sam, you could burst.

_"You want me, Carly. I know you do."_

_"You're wrong."_

Mrs. Puckett reaches out, her hands holding your shoulders and you look up into her face. She doesn't smile. She doesn't sprinkle you with reassurances and her eyes are so broken and you know you did this to her and it's tearing you up inside.

You're cut in two, and the most important part of you disappeared.

"I'm sorry," you say, because it's all you can think of to say. You're sorry you took her daughter away from her, you're sorry you've put her through this. "I'm so sorry."

The woman just shakes her head, reaching up to touch your cheek. "She's Sam. She's wild and unpredictable, but she's strong."

You tremble, watching her face as the two of you struggle not to cry in the middle of the grocery store, but Mrs. Puckett isn't winning the fight. Tears prick at her eyes, so blue like Sam's, and fall down her cheeks, and you feel like screaming.

You don't want to ask, you don't want to fall apart in front of Sam's mom, but you can't help yourself. You reach out and hold her and whisper so softly you don't think it's audible, "Do you think she'll come back?"

And this woman is the first to say she doesn't know, the first one to admit to you that they've thought about their life without Sam in it.

[~]

_"I don't like girls, Sam! I'm not gay!"_

_"This isn't about being gay! This is about you loving me!"_

You haven't been in the iCarly studio since she left because it still feels angry, you can feel it pulse off the door whenever you pass it. You don't want to go in there. You don't want to look at the beanbag where Sam straddled your waist, tangled her fingers in your hair and kissed you with lips made of fire. You don't want to see it, you don't want to remember it, but the door is calling to you and it's the last place you saw her and you can't fight the temptation much longer.

You stand in the middle of the room, turning in a slow circle. You built your webshow here. You remember the first show and the last. It all seems so far away.

It's been one hundred days. You go to school, but only your body is there, not much else, and people whisper around you like you can't hear them. The only person that talks to you is Freddie and sometimes Gibby and you can see it in their eyes, the worry for Sam, the worry for you.

Sam's face is on nearly every telephone poll in Seattle. She's on radio stations and TV.

"Samantha Puckett, age seventeen, blonde hair, blue eyes, has been missing since early January ..."

Winter stopped and spring started in her absence and you're not growing anew like you should be. There are new leaves and every day the posters of Sam's smiling face wither around the corners. Some of them fall into the road, dancing with the wind.

But you can still feel her here in the iCarly studio. You sit on the beanbag tentatively, trying to relax, but when your eyes close you can see Sam crawling over you, panting, struggling with your shirt as she kisses you and ignites an explosion in your chest that you both love and fear.

Sam never treated you like you were fragile because she wanted you to be tough and able to take on anything, and her fingers were rough as they ripped off your clothes, held your cheeks so she could kiss you with heated pressure. She didn't say your name the way Freddie does, like she's afraid of it; she said it like it belonged to her, like you were hers. You can feel the words in the air around you, can feel their weight as they come back. It hurts. It stings. They're cold and you see Sam's face, over and over again, twisting in torture when you tell her you don't like girls, that you're not gay.

Sam had shoved you into the studio door, not to hurt you, just to keep you from running away like you wanted. You didn't want to face whatever you were feeling for Sam. You didn't want to look in her eyes and see such amazing love in those blue eyes.

You had your life planned. You were going to go to college, get a career, get married to Freddie or someone like Freddie and have two and a half kids with a golden retriever and a white picket fence surrounding your glorious suburban house, retire and move to Florida and live the rest of your days on a beach watching the ocean. It was what you had always been told you wanted, and when you made the strides in that direction, that invisible entity patted your shoulder and said, "Good job, kiddo."

You'd throw it all away, though, to know Sam was okay.

You'd trade everything to have Sam right here, right now, so you could kiss her and tell her that you were stupid for trying to run away.

You don't cry as you sit in the iCarly studio, but you do replay it all in your head; Sam lacing her hand in yours, sweeping her fingers under your eye, telling you she loves you and you flinching away.

If you concentrate, you can feel Sam's arms around you and you wonder what in the hell you were trying to run away from.

[~]

On day one hundred and five, the phone rings, and somehow you know that there are words behind the ringing that you have to hear.

"Is this Carly Shay?"

Yes, you tell them, I'm Carly Shay, and your heart grows so large you feel your ribcage is going to pop.

"We found her."

[~]

It's three more days before you see her. Three days spent sitting anxiously next to Freddie while whoever is holding Sam try to figure out what to do with her. They call you and tell you Sam's with her mom, that you can see her in the morning, but when midnight rolls around you just know that you can't wait, so you leave. You don't tell Spencer or Freddie, you just leave with your jacket tucked around your body.

You could take a taxi, or the bus, because Sam's a few miles away, but you walk. You walk to feel the chilly night air play with your hair, you walk because you need time to think about what you're going to do when you see her. Your heart is shredding itself to pieces and soon you're running, your feet slapping against the concrete, because it's been almost four months, _four months_ empty without her, and you don't know how you did it, how you survived without her because there's this hole in your chest and it's sucking everything up.

You're crying, sobbing, dying by the time you make it to Sam's apartment, climbing the stairs two at a time and throwing your fists on the door. You don't care that it's late, you don't care that people are sleeping in this hall, you just know that Sam's behind that door. That invisible entity is scolding you, yelling at you for being so rude and inconsiderate of the other people in the hall but you ignore it, for once you don't listen, you just punch the door because it's keeping Sam that much longer away from you.

The door swings open and you fall into the threshold, your eyes locked on the most beautiful person you've ever seen.

Blue eyes hold you, rough and yet soft around the edges, the way they always are when she looks at you, and then she's yanking you into her chest and the way you mold into her is just proof that she should have never left in the first place.

She kisses you through your tears, shuts the door behind you and holds you against it and you clutch at her, bringing her as tightly as you can to yourself because this is Sam and she's like your arms and legs; you can't do anything without her.

Her lips are hungry against yours and you wonder if she missed you as much as you missed her.

"I hate you," you say, almost screaming as you hold her face and force her back to meet her eyes. "I hate you so much for doing that to me, I hate you, I hate you, don't you ever do that again, oh, fuck, Sam -"

"I love you, too," she whispers, so soft and calm compared to you, and for once she's the one who has to put you back together. It doesn't make much sense that the last time you saw her you were trying to get away from her, trying to duck those lips that are now pushing against your own, but it's different now because that invisible entity was never right, it just tried to make you want something that was never appealing to begin with. You hold her face, hold her as close as you can and cry into her kisses. You don't realize your knees have given out, but you're on Sam's floor and she's holding you, wiping your tears away only for them to be replaced with new ones.

_"Maybe I'll just leave, then."_

_"Fine, go!"_

You sob harder, bringing her face back to yours until your forehead meets you. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean for you to leave."

The corner of Sam's lips are lifting slowly and she shakes her head, swiping her thumb under your eye again to catch a tear before it can leave a trail. "I wanted to know what it was like to live without you." She paused for a moment, shaking her head slowly. "It was hell."

"Hell," you agreed, pulling her to you again and you sob into her hair. It was the perfect word to describe these hours and days and weeks and months without her. "It was hell."

[~]

Spencer cries. Even Freddie sheds a few tears as he pulls Sam into his arms and trembles into her neck.

"C'mon, Fredward, be a man," she says, but she's crying too, and you're off to the side, a frown twisting its way into a smile.

Gibby keeps true to his word, punching her hard in the arm before he holds her tightly, like he's afraid she'll float away.

Sam winks at you over Gibby's shoulder.

[~]

You wait a week to tell her and you knew she'd be upset, so you put it off, enjoying the mornings of waking up in a flushed panic only to discover Sam is right next to you.

You wait a week. Seven days spent wrapped in her arms, kissing her lips, ignoring the entity behind that is slowly losing itself. You allow yourself seven days of her skin and voice and lips, and then you tell her, because you're done with lying.

It hurts when she moves away from you and stares out your window, holding her elbows. Her blue eyes are far away. You let the silence tick by, watching the clock on the wall of your room until you cant' take it anymore - there had been enough silence when Sam was gone, and you want nothing but noise now. "Sam?"

"You had sex with Freddie." She says the words like she's trying to force herself to believe them and she shakes her head, gnawing at her lip as she stares out at Seattle.

You flinch, staring at your bedspread, letting your fingers drift across them. "Look, I didn't know if you were dead or ever coming back, and I was ... alone."

"So you filled the space with that nub?"

"He's not a nub, Sam." You clench your hands tightly and she turns to look at you, surprise flickering through the hurt in her eyes. "You left. He made me feel better. He helped me ... forget you for a little while." You look away, into your lap and your struggling hands. "I'm sorry, Sam, but you weren't here and he was and I didn't really think about it, just kind of happened a couple of times -"

"A couple of times? Jesus Christ -"

"Sam." You say it hard and fast and she looks at you briefly before shifting her bitter eyes back to the window. "I was really messed up, okay? You left me."

"You told me to leave."

"You scared me."

"Do I still scare you?" She turns back to the bed, eyebrows flying behind her bangs. Her hair grew so much while she was gone, her bangs are teasing her eyes and she keeps flipping it angrily to the side.

"Well, yeah. You've always scared me." You fold your arms and push your back against the headboard of the bed. "I'm over it."

Sam watches you before sighing, her arms falling as is the rest of her pent up anger and she sways back to the bed, crawling over it until she's in your face. She's making your room, your whole apartment smell like her and you like it more than you're willing to admit. You missed her more than you thought your heart was capable of.

"Was the dork any good?"

You laugh, shrugging your shoulders. "Not bad."

"I bet I can outdo him."

"Oh, I'd like to see you try."

[~]

"You know I love you," you say to Freddie, looping your arms around his neck and kissing his cheek.

"Yeah, I do." He sighs into your hair, releasing a broken laugh. "I'm glad she's back. I'm glad you two are, uhm, together, or whatever."

You smile against his skin, still holding him, not ready to let go, because that entity is still hovering over your shoulder. It's not too late to break it off with Sam, jump into Freddie's lap forever, and make him yours. He wouldn't say no and you know that.

But you've never been good at lying and you don't like the way it makes you feel.

You run your fingers through his hair. "Thank you, Freddie. For everything."

"Anytime, Carly. It's going to be tough finding a girl as good as you."

You kiss his cheek once more before pulling away, holding his cheeks in your hands and Freddie loves you so much, Freddie loves you the way you love Sam, and you know he can see it in your eyes as well as you can see it in his.

"You will. I promise."

[~]

Sam never tells you where she went, what she did, and a part of you doesn't want to know. You don't want to picture Sam lost and broken, you don't want to see Sam in your mind the way you were for those long months. It doesn't matter because she's here right now, folded in your arms, eating popcorn, and Freddie's texting some girl he met online on the other end of the couch. Sam's head is in your lap and her legs are in Fredde's and there such a bold normalcy to it that you fear you might cry.

But Sam's made you tougher than you ever thought yourself capable, so you don't. You just run your fingers through Sam's hair and watch the movie and the entity fuzzes away and finally, you're ready to make your own decisions. And your life is never going to normal, because Sam Puckett is a part of it.

You're going to make sure that some day, Sam is something you're no longer afraid of.


End file.
